August Sander

August Sander (1876- 1964) was a German portrait and documentary photographer. His legacy includes landscape, nature, architecture and street photography, but he is best known for his portraits. His most famous book included portraits of the German population between 1892 and 1952, and was titled 'Citizens of the 20th Century'. It was a landmark for portrait photography and is regarded as an 'archive' of twentieth century man. Sander had intended to create a rank ordered portrait collection of the German people but it remained incomplete by the time of his death. Ulrich Keller, professor of art history at the university of California, in collaboration with Gunther Sander the photographers son compressed Sanders work into this book, with Keller writing the introductory essay and Gunther Sander editing the work. There are 431 photographs which are presented in 45 portfolios each divided into seven sections on farmers, workers, women, occupations, artists, the big city, and the last people.
I am focusing on the whole of Sanders 'Citizens of the 20th Century' but specifically on the portraits of workers and famers because they are documentary photographs of people completing their everyday work tasks. For the start of my documentary project, I want to photograph the workers of the different industries found within using Sanders work as inspiration.
As you can see his portraits are straight-on and put the subject in the centre of the frame, suggesting to the viewer that they are the centre of attention, with everything surrounding the subject just being added information about their job role. Below Sanders has photographed a Baker, a master mason and a bricklayer, which were all common jobs of the period so should represent the common man. The looks on each of their faces are quite serious, possibly suggesting that Sander told them not to pose for the camera, which would hopefully show a more truthful portrait of themselves and their emotions at work. I'm definitely going to apply this technique to the portraits of workers within Chinatown that I am going to carry out, because I feel if they are smiling and posing for the camera it makes the image look quite false and thus not an accurate representation of the person and their emotions. Sander hasn't taken his subjects out of their work environment to allow the viewer to easily see what job role they are in, which is something to think about while I'm taking mine.